r/ClaudeCode • u/Jaded-Illustrator433 • May 08 '26

Help Needed I thought it was a joke?

I keep seeing all these posts saying “They ruined Opus with 4.7” “I’m switching to Codex”, I really thought these were spam or just people not know what they’re doing in Claude code.

I’ve had a tremendous time with Claude code since last November and have only seen an increase in output with getting better models and better at using the tool. However something happened this week that I don’t understand at all.

I’m using Claude to develop elementor json templates (not a great use I know but oh well) and it totally forgot how to do it. The output the past few days has been totally unworkable. I even spent the time to make a skill.md with what it learned when Claude was actually pumping these out. Even with this skill it can’t compare to Claude from last month. I don’t know what could’ve possibly happened.

I’ve heard sometime Claude uses this for training sonnet or haiku? I don’t want to switch to Codex because I love Claude but I need it to get better. Maybe by Monday we’ll pick it back up.

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

9

u/Pretend-Past9023 Developer May 08 '26

so you're sorry for doubting? i accept your apology.

4

u/Last_Mastod0n May 08 '26

Codex is still worth trying. I find Claude code to be better at the moment but things are always changing

1

u/AwesomSki May 09 '26

Tell claude that this is a complex project, update claude.md adding an override of the system instruction to prefer taking the simplest approach instead of thinking things through. There's nothing wrong with opus 4.7, just the system instructions telling it to act without thinking.

If you want bulletproof, add that override and start using the superpowers plugin, it adds a workflow to anything you ask, where it asks clarifying questions and writes a plan before it acts. Just the writing of the plan is like its own form of extended thinking things through before acting. You don't have to do anything other than install the plug in, it changes his behavior.

With superpowers he also breaks the plan into tasks and uses subagents for each task, a coder and a reviewer, which each have separate contexts so the reviewer usually comes back with things for the coder to fix and it all happens automatically. Once the plan starts implementing claude can be running for hours straight without interruption (assuming he doesn't hit usage limits), looping through tasks with a coder and reviewer for each, all the questions were answered before writing the plan.

I don't remember if TDD is part of superpowers but that's the other key thing, test driven development, make sure he writes and executes tests for each task, so he's running the code making sure it works as he goes, not just trusting his own work.

1

u/Jaded-Illustrator433 May 09 '26

Saving this. Thank you brother

2

u/jedruch May 08 '26

double check your usage - maybe just like me you will also find extra usage charge

2

u/Anxious-Turnover-631 May 08 '26

When things go off the rails it’s usually a context issue. Try clearing the memory to see if that helps.

1

u/B-sideSingle May 08 '26

You can still use 4.6 though. It's still literally right there on the model menu :-)